The following very interesting study was done in 2007-08. CCD is a world wide problem that pretty much everybody has heard of by now.

You can draw your own conclusions as to its' cause, but the science here makes it pretty clear to me that while there are multiple possible causes, chemical contaminants play a large part. This is interesting to me as I have had the company of two feral hives living in the walls of both my barn and my farmhouse for many years. They have always been healthy colonies and I suspect it is because they have always had plenty of wildflowers for nectar and pollen, and haven't been near any agricultural chemicals. I now have a hive I can inspect, housed in a Langstroth box. We'll see if they do as well as the other two feral hives. It will be nice to finally be able to harvest some of our own honey.

Background

Recent declines in honey bees for crop pollination threaten fruit, nut, vegetable and seed production in the United States. A broad survey of pesticide residues was conducted on samples from migratory and other beekeepers across 23 states, one Canadian province and several agricultural cropping systems during the 2007–08 growing seasons.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We have used LC/MS-MS and GC/MS to analyze bees and hive matrices for pesticide residues utilizing a modified QuEChERS method. We have found 121 different pesticides and metabolites within 887 wax, pollen, bee and associated hive samples. Almost 60% of the 259 wax and 350 pollen samples contained at least one systemic pesticide, and over 47% had both in-hive acaricides fluvalinate and coumaphos, and chlorothalonil, a widely-used fungicide. In bee pollen were found chlorothalonil at levels up to 99 ppm and the insecticides aldicarb, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos and imidacloprid, fungicides boscalid, captan and myclobutanil, and herbicide pendimethalin at 1 ppm levels. Almost all comb and foundation wax samples (98%) were contaminated with up to 204 and 94 ppm, respectively, of fluvalinate and coumaphos, and lower amounts of amitraz degradates and chlorothalonil, with an average of 6 pesticide detections per sample and a high of 39. There were fewer pesticides found in adults and brood except for those linked with bee kills by permethrin (20 ppm) and fipronil (3.1 ppm).

Conclusions/Significance

The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining bee health remains to be determined.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

I have been lax at posting. Here is some filler shamelessly lifted from the News of the Weird, while I try to get some of my own news together:

Here
is something I’ve had a lot of success growing when I lived in Florida!

* Extract of cockroach is a delicacy among some Chinese, able
tomiraculously reduce inflammation, defy aging, and curetuberculosis,
cancer, and cirrhosis. Agence France-Presse reportedin August that Yunnan
province is a silicon-valley-type businesscenter, where pulverized roaches
can sell for the equivalent of about$89 a pound, and five pharmaceutical
companies have contractswith ranches that have formed the Sichuan Treasure
CockroachCooperative. (In August, a start-up farm in Jiangsu province
was,police suspect, vandalized, allowing at least a million
cockroachesbeing prepared for market to flee to adjacent neighborhoods.)
[Quartz (qz.com), 8-27-2013] [Agence
France-Presse via DailyTelegraph (London), 8-25-2013]It
would work for me!

*
When entrepreneur Michelle Esquenazi was asked by a New YorkPost reporter in
September why her all-female crew of licensedbounty hunters (Empire Bail
Bonds of New York) is so successfulat tricking bail-jumpers into the open,
she offered a five-lettervulgar euphemism for a female body part. "It's
timeless," shecontinued. "Of course he's going to open his door for a nice
pieceof [deleted]." "The thing about defendants is no matter who
theyare [of whatever color], they're all dumb. Every single last one
ofthem is stupid." [New York Post, 9-27-2013] ] The
lawyer always wins!* It's expensive to go broke in America. Detroit, which
mostacknowledge acted wisely in filing for bankruptcy protection in
July(in the face of debts estimated to be at least $18 billion),
willnonetheless be on the hook for bankruptcy-law fees that could
total$60 million under current contracts (according to an October
NewYork Times report), plus various expenses, such as the $250,000
toChristie's auction house to price and sell some assets. A feeexaminer
has been hired to keep the expenses in line, but he charges$600 an hour.
[New York Times, 10-8-2013]

Medical Marvels Oh the horror!* A recent medical journal reported
that a 49-year-oldman in Brazil said he had recovered from a stroke except
that thedamage to his brain (in a "subcortical region" associated
withhigher-level thinking) has caused him to develop
"pathologicalgenerosity" toward others. A Duke University neurologist
toldLondon's Daily Mail that stroke-induced personality changes (suchas
hoarding) are common but that this particular change appearsunique. Doctors
reported in the journal Neurocase that even withmedication, this patient's
beneficence was unabated after two years. [Daily Mail (London),
9-7-2013]Perspective* Americans frequently cite the rigorous,
above-board testing ofprescription drugs as one of government's most
important functions,and health insurance companies use such seals of
approval inpolicy-coverage decisions. However, some consumers seem
toprefer unorthodox, untested, unregulated products and, backed
bylobbyists for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM),
arechallenging the insurers for "discriminat[ing]" against these"drugs,"
especially in the game-changing rules of the newAffordable Care Act. A
Forbes.com columnist explained in Augustwhat would happen if CAM prevails:
"You could start offeringdried bird poop for arthritis, call it avian
nature therapy,' and if aninsurer won't pay for it, you can sue."
[Forbes.com, 8-26-2013]